China's insurance watchdog is urging for better farm insurance product offerings this year for farmers to shore up grain production and agricultural development.

Insurance companies should further promote government-subsidized insurance on crop planting and livestock breeding, said the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) in a circular on Monday.

The commission, which is directly under the State Council, China's Cabinet, mapped out guidelines for insurers to develop their farm insurance business this year, pointing out the direction of future policies.

About 40 to 50 percent of crops planted in six provinces and more than 80 percent of the country's reproducible sows have been insured since China launched pilot projects to subsidize farm insurance last year.

Insurance should be boosted on hog raising and cash-crop growing and cover the whole process of agricultural production, said the commission.

It told insurers to develop insurance products against price and income fluctuations and include natural disasters, accidents, insect pests and epidemics in the liability.

The recently-ended devastating winter led to 66.3 million yuan (about US$9.47 million) of indemnities in farm insurance, less than 4 percent of the total compensation.

"China has a great potential in developing farm insurance," said Yuan Li, assistant to the CIRC chairman.

The People's Insurance Company (Group) of China, the country's largest farm insurer, saw its farm insurance premiums exceed 3 billion yuan last year, more than the combined total of the previous eight years.

The government also arranged 6.05 billion yuan to improve the farm insurance subsidizing system this year, nearly three times the figure last year, in a bid to encourage farmers to buy insurance.

Apart from soybean, corn, wheat, rice and cotton, peanut and rape have be added to the crops with insurance allowances this year, with the central government paying 35 percent of premiums, up from 25 percent last year.

Insurance subsidies will be expanded to cover all major grain-producing regions in the country and dairymen in key milk-producing provinces.

The increased policy support was a firm answer to farmers' eagerness to buy insurance after the harsh winter, said Tuo Guozhu, a Capital University of Economics and Business insurance professor.

(Xinhua News Agency April 10, 2008)